


Detachment

by thetreesgrowodd



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Captivity, Dark, Multi, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-01
Updated: 2002-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 20:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/216842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetreesgrowodd/pseuds/thetreesgrowodd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All alone in a dungeon while Death Eaters torture Harry and Ron, Hermione's sanity deteriorates. Their only chance at freedom will require them to do something they've never even considered before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Detachment

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2002.

Cold. I lie on a cold, hard floor, aching all over.

I don't know where I am.

I open my eyes and only darkness looks back at me. My body freezes but my heart starts to thunder. I strain to make out any detail, any sound. Where am I? Where was I before I was here? I must to control my pounding heart, control my breathing so I can hear... Echoey dripping. Muffled far away noises that I can't identify, far above, below, around me.

Breathe. I inhale dust. I feel gritty all over. Must. Decay. Filthy smells.

I have to move eventually. My body braces for anything as I worm my numb fingers into the jumble of fabric that is my pocket. My wand isn't there. I check again. Again. It has to be there. Could it have fallen near me? I reach for the floor around me. I don't know what is there - my fingers could touch anything. I am accosted by visions of what I might encounter - something warm, squishy, slimy, guts spilling from Harry's body, blood pooling from Ron's body. I squeeze my eyes shut and banish those images. Don't think like that. My fingers probe the floor. No wand, no weapon, no clue... nothing.

Ok. What now? I sit up. Moving hurts. "R-ron?" I croak. "Harry?" Nothing.

Something is there in the dark, watching me, listening to me, enjoying my terror. Something is there, isn't it? And it could attack me at any second.

My eyes sting. My stomach is in knots. Why, why am I here? There has to be an explanation - there is always a rational explanation - why am I here alone in the cold and dark and dirt. Please let there be an explanation, an explanation other than the one I fear...

Shaking, I stand. A silent tear drips from my chin and I ignore it. Never have I been this scared in my life. Cautious step. One at a time. Just feel along the floor ahead of you with your toe, Hermione, don't step in any pits or trip over anything. Keep your head. That's what I do. Keep my head. My hands grope like a sleepwalker. Take a step. Do it again.

The floor slopes and twice I reach out with my toe and the floor isn't where it should be - it's lower. Random steps. A crazy, uneven floor. A crazy room to lock away that crazy girl.

My fingers skim something and I jerk them to my chest. I cautiously reach out again. A wall? Cold, smooth, square edges of stone block. Square. Straight crevices between blocks. Logic. Pattern. Humanity. I feel along and reach an edge in the wall which goes to the floor and higher than I can reach. I hope that around the corner is a passageway out of here, but my fingers touch a solid back. It's only a niche in the wall. Why? Where is the logic in that?

I make my way entirely around the room. The walls fake me out several times more with odd niches and corners and places that feel like passageways or doors but are, in fact, nothing, just a continuation of that enclosed room. That's cheating.

No exit. How did I get here then? Is there an opening in the ceiling, too high for me to reach? Why didn't I learn to apparate yet? Ok, Crazy Room. I want out.

I have no wand, but I put the tip of one finger to the wall. "Alohomora." Nothing.

Palm flat on cold stone, concentration, all of myself into the word. "REDUCTO."

Not this time.

Please please please. "REDUCTO."

 _No!_ the room may as well shout at me.

Back to the wall, I sit on the floor. I will not die here. I won't.

Ron, Harry, why were we so reckless?

Like half remembering the plot of a book you read years ago, or recalling only the mood but not the details of a dream... We were outside. It was cold, not cold like this room, but fresh, crisp, healthy, winter, outside. Night time.

I didn't have time to turn, at Ron's shout, before something hit me. Ron, did you escape? I know that if Harry's here too, he's either dead or being tortured. Why not me? Why am I alone? Or... is this cold, dark, timeless, solitude my torture?

Where are you, Ron? Killed like Cedric for nothing but being at Harry's side?

Why are they keeping me alive?Are they going to come for me at any moment? Please don't leave me here to die!

I try to stop shaking and crying but I can't. I search my pockets for something with which to soothe myself. Empty.

Eventually, somehow I sleep.

I'm empty inside when I wake. Hours of jittery sleep have left me exhausted. But the room is lit dimly now. It's indeed shaped oddly - it's a Crazy Room - just like I thought. Corners and twists and steps and unlit nooks that appear deceptively backless in the dim light. But they're not, they're cheating. Crazy. Nothing else is here but water dripping from the ceiling. I can't find the light source. There is no logic to it.

I sit until I'm sore from the hard floor and have to pee so bad it hurts. Unsteady on my feet I walk to a far corner. The room feels like it's full of eyes. I pull up my skirt and pull down my underwear. Steadying myself against the wall, I crouch and pee right there on the floor. There. That's what I think of you. Ha, take that, Crazy Room.

Back to where I spent the night, I sit with my back to the wall and my knees to my chest. I am so very empty. I have nothing. I imagine the Death Eaters coming for Hermione to torture her for information, to find out about the Boy Who Lived but finding only an empty shell. A husk. It would look like Hermione but so empty and light that it would fly away on a tiny breeze. I smile at that, feeling less sane.

A long time passes with me staring emptily. Something snaps me out of that, an urgent demand for clear thought from the logical part of my brain. Yes, Thinking Clearly, the Hermione Specialty. I must keep my head if I want to get out of here. I tell myself this. Think of something. When they come for me, I have no weapon. I have only my mind. I imagine myself ducking past them, stealing a wand and Avada Kedavraing everyone in sight before they take me down.

Ok. Scenario two. Dumbledore will save us. He can do anything. Why isn't he here yet? Dumbledore and Hagrid and McGonagal and Sirius and Lupin and Snape. Yes. They could save us. Dumbledore would never let anyone harm Harry. I smile. I'm sure it's just taking them some time to organize and get here - wherever here is. But they're coming. They're furious. They'll storm in and kill You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters and all of this will go away. I have to stay positive. Ron, Harry, me, we'll have the best summer ever. I won't hold back anymore. I'll finally tell them how happy I am to have real friends at last. I'll kiss Ron. I'll be a normal girl. I'll have a normal life, a normal romance. Why have I been waiting?

Just please let them be alive. I don't know why I'm not dead. Don't let them be dead. That wouldn't be fair, them dying and me living. If I'm alive they have to be. Damn you, Crazy Room. Harry must be dead. They must have him, he has to be dead. I have no strength left and I can't keep a clear head. And... what if escape means going back and trying to live a life without Ron and Harry?

My head spins. I wish something would happen. I wait for a very, very long time. Boredom is a physical thing, I decide. I never knew that. I always kept myself too busy. Boredom presses on your chest and constricts your throat. Boredom is serious - possibly deadly. Maybe loneliness is too. I think it's boredom's partner.

Just come and kill me already. End this. Take me and question me and torture me. Don't leave me here.... I can't think like this, I can't, I can't, I'm dooming myself. I can't get warm and I can't get comfortable. And I'm so thirsty...

I find where the water drips from the ceiling. Water. Life. I will survive for whatever future I may have. I let the drops fall into my mouth.

 

Time passes with no meaning to me. I drink water, I sleep. I pace until I get too dizzy. I plead with God. It's low to try to bargain with God, isn't it? Desperate. He can't appreciate that, can He, when you ignore Him until you think you're going to die. Hours pass. Days pass. I live. See, I'm coping. I'm Coping. I'm Not Crazy. I'm not.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" I scream at the wall, jerking my finger at it. See, don't mess with me.

"I won't take any shit from you!" I announce to the Crazy Room.

I'm dizzy. I sit down again. I need to eat. All I can do is sleep.

 

I'm awake again. I wish I wasn't. I'm happier asleep. Something is in the corner. My body jerks. My brain reels. A ghost. Standing there silently, looking at me...

I know him.

Ron.

I'm hallucinating. I cover my eyes. I'm hallucinating, I tell myself. My stomach churns. If I look back he'll be gone... Ron's not dead, he's not! I didn't just see Ron's ghost! It's something in the water or the air, lack of food, making me hallucinate.

I dare myself to look again. But he's there. And the expression on his face...

Reality sinks in.

"Ron...?"

"Hermione..." he sounds far away.

"No... no..." I bow my head and grip my hair. The room is spinning. "Ron's not dead, not dead! Ron is not a ghost! Don't be dead Ron!" I repeat these words over and over. I can't stop. I don't know what to do... so I scream them. I know Ron is dead but right now I need that noise. I like the screaming. I can't take the quiet. That ghost might tell me he's real if I'm quiet enough to hear him.

"Please no, not Ron," I repeat and repeat. Suddenly I wish that if one of them had to be dead that it was Harry and not Ron. I immediately hate myself for thinking that.

At last I take my hands off my ears and look up. I can feel the cold radiating from him. Pearly white and semi-transparent and glowing, Ron kneels next to me. Don't look at me like that Ron. Not with that heart-broken expression.

"Are you ok, Hermione?"

I'm sane enough to see the irony - he's dead and he's asking me if I'm ok. I can't answer.

"What happened, Ron?"

The ghost of Ron presses his lips together. "I'm not sure about everything. But when we were coming back from Hagrid's, the Death Eaters attacked us. I saw their spell hit you, and I guess I was next."

I nod mutely.

"But I woke up before we got here. They were on brooms, you know, bringing us here. I was so confused though, I didn't know we were flying. When I woke up, all I knew was that I had to fight. Before I was even completely awake I started hitting and kicking and... I fell..."

I sucked in a breath.

"But that didn't kill me. Yet. I was still alive after we got here and all I knew was that I was in someplace I'd never been before and I couldn't feel anything, but that was a good thing because I must have been really messed up at that point. It was like I was there forever but I kept blacking out and waking up again and everything was all jumbled and there was blood everywhere.

"I saw Harry chained up to a wall. They hadn't bothered to chain me, just left me on the floor. I was past being able to fight. But he was panicking and fighting against the chains and it was making his wrists and ankles all red and bleeding. Sometimes he was screaming stuff. Sometimes he sounded a little calmer and I think he was talking to me. I couldn't understand him but it made me feel better... Except when he would scream. That was horrible. I think some of it was Parseltongue. He must have been... really out of it. He made some stuff explode in the room too, you know, uncontrolled magic. I think he was hurting himself.

"But... when they brought in the Dementors, he really freaked out. He kept yelling that spell of his - you know, the one that conjured the stag? But it wouldn't work without a wand. I don't remember the Dementors affecting me, I just remember wishing so bad that Harry had his Patronus to protect him. And I had this weird thought that maybe... I could be his Patronus if I wanted to. And so, I came out of my body - I could see it on the floor... I was dead - and stood between him and the Dementors until they left. I don't know if I helped Harry - he had already passed out.

"They just left him there all this time," Ron shakes his ghostly head. "Hanging on the wall, no food or water. One of them just comes in and does Crucio on him for a while or sends in a Dementor now and then. He was passed out so I decided to come look for you. I can move around but I can't do anything..." he stares frustrated at his ghostly hands. "I'm dead. I can't open any doors or unlock his shackles. All I can do is float around and talk, even though he isn't really coherent anymore. But I'll get you out, both of you, somehow I promise."

I don't even know what to say. I cover my face with my hands. I desperately want him by my side, but I tell him to go to Harry. Harry needs him more than I do. But Ron insists on staying with me until I fall asleep.

 

I wake. I'm still here. Ron isn't. Could I have dreamed it? Ron where did you go? Ron's a ghost but he can stay with me, can't he? He can come back to Hogwarts with us. He can live with the ghosts there. Yeah. It's not so bad, Ron being dead. But where is he? With Harry. If we all die we can haunt Hogwarts together. That's not so bad... not so bad. Then You-Know-Who wouldn't be after Harry anymore, would he?

 _THUD_. I jerk to my feet, adrenaline surging through my limbs. _THUD_. Something is hitting the wall from the other side. I scramble to the other end of the room and brace myself.

 _THUD_. The wall implodes, chunks of stone skittering across the floor and bouncing madly down the steps. A figure is shrouded in a cloud of dust slouched against the jagged opening and panting.

It's not...

It's Harry.

The light behind him is almost blinding to my eyes that have gotten so used to the dimness. I limp toward him, squinting and absorbing what I see. One side of his face is red-purple and lumpy. His glasses are gone and his eyes are bloodshot. One of his front teeth is broken. He's clutching his side. His tattered robes are pulled back from his wrists which are welted and raw.

And yet, somehow, he's on his feet, somehow he controlled his magic enough to break the wall, somehow he's coherent enough to-

"Hermione..."

"Harry!"

He smells like sweat and urine. I notice for the first time a shabby-looking old broom in his hand.

"Come on, we have to go."

"Ron-"

"It's too late," he says brokenly.

"I know... but..."

He shakes his head and mounts the broom stiffly, then looks back at me. I get on behind him and hold on around his skinny chest. He gasps in pain.

"Harry?"

"My side... I think some ribs are broken..."

I apologize and put my hands on his shoulders and we are airborne.

Down a hall too narrow for this unstable broom we jerk, shudder and drift.

"Duck," he yells. I curl in against him and we swoop out a window. And plummet sickeningly. It's a long drop. The muscles in his shoulders work furiously as he tries to pull us out of the fall. If we die here, at least we'll die outside of that place... We jerk back upwards and speed forward and the terror releases me.

I hold tight to him and time passes brokenly. Over dark trees and mountains... no lights, no civilization. At daybreak we finally land on a grassy cliff, finally feeling that we've put enough space behind us. Our legs buckle underneath us. We're far from where we started. We're free.

We sit and catch our breath and shake.

"Don't leave me!" Harry shouts suddenly. I stare at him. He's not even looking at me.

"I'm not! I'm right here!" I say, bewildered.

Harry is shaking, on his knees, hugging himself with both arms. "Please stay. Please stay," he murmurs, torn trousers sliding on the slick grass.

"Harry, what-" Oh God, he really is crazy. I thought he was sane, but now...

"What will I do without you?" he asks the ground, shoulders heaving. But he's not talking to me...

Something in Harry starts to glow. I move back, eyes wide. The glow is coming out, I can see it moving up from all along his body.

"No! Ron!" Harry screams, arms tightening around himself like he's trying to hold himself together.

Ron's face. It's Ron's ghost that flows from Harry's body, head from head, back from back. Harry's body goes limp as Ron's ghost floats free. The ghostly face is horrible, full of pain. Ron looks at me pleadingly.

"Harry... Harry!" I kneel by him, pulling his shoulders up. He is awake and his hands move out to steady himself on the grass. He blinks. His neck droops like a wilting flower.

"Please, please don't leave me, Ron..." he says again.

"I can't go with you," Ron says uncertainly.

"Yes you can!" Harry cries, finally looking up at Ron. "You can stay! You can stay in me, I told you that!"

Ron shakes his head. "I can't do that to you, Harry..."

"You can!"

"No, you have to go live your life, Harry."

Harry, defeated, looks back at the ground. "I don't want to without you."

Ron seems to have no answer.

"You possessed Harry..." I whisper.

Ron nods. "He didn't have enough strength left by himself."

"But," my mind races to remember, "possession is very rare... it's rare for the spirit to find a compatible host. And it's supposed to be very hard to do and it can potentially damage the host body..."

"Well it worked for us..." Ron replies.

"That was both of you, then, all this time?"

"Both of us together," Harry says.

"I can't stay in your body, Harry. It's too hard on you. It's already drained you this much - more might kill you. And just staying here is getting really hard for me. I... I need to be somewhere else. I don't know how I know that, but I can feel it."

I stare at him not knowing what to say. I'm still supporting Harry who is crumpled heavily against me.

"Well... tell my family... you know... and all of that..." Ron says, looking at the rising sun.

"I will," I promise in a shaky whisper. Harry makes a longing, hollow noise of despair.

"Thank you, Hermione."

"Um..."

"Harry..." Ron kneels by us, one hand reaching as if to touch Harry's hair. "Harry." Ron meets my eyes.

Whatever I want to say right then, I can't.

And then, where he was, he no longer is.

Neither of us can speak right then, so I go on holding Harry.

Somehow we'll get back and go on with our lives. Two not three.


End file.
